Abstract for Katherine Wallman's Keynote

At the Intersection of Statistics and Public Policy:
Confronting the Challenges

Katherine K. Wallman, Chief Statistician of the United States

The public policy uses of statistical data have increased strikingly during the last half century. Today we mandate the use of statistical series in a number of our country's laws, and we use statistical data to evaluate policy alternatives. For example, we use statistics to establish government policy with respect to education and the environment, and to guide government efforts to expand the coverage and contain the costs of health care. The terms of reference for interaction between statisticians, policy makers, and the public have changed markedly since the days when members of the statistics profession were concerned largely with coding, tabulation, and correction of obvious errors in data collections. Now we are faced with what economist James Bonnen has described as a growing, intimate embrace between statistics and public policy decision making [which] has greatly increased the significance and decision value of the statistics we produce. In this milieu, official statisticians must endeavor to ensure that our science is relevant to society, and that our society understands our science.